The Lost Art of Wandering from Room to Room
by Nyghtvision
Summary: What happens when the entire cast of Ronin Warriors lives together in one house...? You had to ask. How about Badamon as a house pet? Chaos. What else? Go ahead. Review. You know you want to.
1. Default Chapter

The Lost Art of Wandering from Room to Room By Caspian Nyghtvision  
  
Major Note: This is Alternate Universe, so no one is really dead - at least, not anyone I like. It's July; the Ronins are taking summer college, everyone else works. For reasons that will be explained later, almost everyone (Nine armor bearers, Kayura, Yuli, the Ancient, Badamon, White Blaze) lives in Mia's house, which has magically acquired an addition with two new bedrooms and a den. That's called Artistic License. **Satisfied nod**  
  
Disclaimers: Ronins and cast belong to somebody else, I am NOT a buggle, and there's no such thing as juu-juu. Meh.  
  
Chapter One: 12 Konton Road  
  
The man brushed his short white bangs out of his eyes, panting slightly in the heat. It was almost six in the evening, but the temperature was in the high eighties. Everyone else was at work, and he was left alone in the house. Well, not entirely alone. He did have the pets.  
  
Bending down, he picked up the two heavy dog-food bowls on the floor. One was very large and had "White Blaze" printed around it, and the other was Chihuahua-sized and said "Badamon." He filled them with cold water and set them back down.  
  
At the sound of their water bowls, the two household pets came racing in from the den, where they had been trying to keep cool. Growls and hisses erupted as White Blaze finished his water first and tried to steal Badamon's. The man sighed and separated them. Badamon scampered behind his legs and whimpered, while the tiger triumphantly finished both water bowls. While White Blaze was distracted, the man tossed Badamon a doggie treat, and the Netherspirit scurried happily off to bury it somewhere.  
  
"If Mia finds biscuit crumbs in her underwear drawer again, she'll lock you in the closet for a week!" the man shouted after the blue-skinned pet. He rolled his eyes, a gesture that went unseen, since the baseball cap he always wore covered most of his face. All that could really be seen of his face was his tanned lower jaw, and the long white ponytail in the back. He looked a bit like a retired hippie, wearing blue jeans and a borrowed shirt. The shirt was white, and said, incomprehensibly, in red English letters, "Milkball."  
  
From far away, he heard the distant crunching of tires on the long gravel driveway. He tilted his head and concentrated. Sounded like Mia's car, the red Samurai jeep. That meant the three people who worked at the university were coming home early. It would probably be a good idea to make sure the house wasn't a festering mess before Mia got in. The screaming, ranting, violently dangerous Angry Mia was not something any man would want to contend with. (Angry Kayura was another one. He shuddered to think.)  
  
He looked quickly around the house. Yowls and snarls from upstairs meant that White Blaze had discovered Badamon's doggie treat, and was now going to wreak hell on earth until he got one, too. The living room was completely trashed due to the tiger's most recent kitty spaz fit. The corners of the carpet were shredded, and the couch had been turned into a big scratching post. Badamon had spent most of his day getting glitter all over the upstairs, and had stolen a lot of food and 'hidden' it. In case you were wondering, dear reader, that is why there were celery sticks in all the lighting fixtures.  
  
For his own part, he'd done some casual mess-making that had to be dealt with. Personally, he liked a lived-in house. But it wasn't worth his life if Wrathful Mia begged to differ.  
  
White Blaze padded in, tongue lolling in the unbearable heat. The man looked down at him. "You are aware of the fate awaiting us when she sees this place?"  
  
The tiger seemed to raise a skeptic eyebrow.  
  
"Needs must, old friend. Go get the Ancient Vacuum Cleaner of Doom."  
  
The background music swelled dramatically.  
  
Mia sighed as they finally reached the end of the driveway, and she switched off the engine. She let her weary head fall to the steering wheel. "This has been one hell of a day," she groaned.  
  
Dais was in the backseat with one elbow on each of the front seats. Despite the scolding, the Warlord still refused to wear a seatbelt. "It does not get this hot in the Netherworld," he stated with savage force, as if it was the first time he'd ever said it. It wasn't. Mia reminded him of the fact. Since it was too hot to argue, and Dais recognized that tone of voice, he decided to let it rest. "Yes, ma'am."  
  
They dragged themselves out of the air-conditioned haven of the Jeep, swaying slightly as the heat attacked them. Mia glowered tiredly at the stuff in the trunk they were going to have to bring in. It was too damn hot to carry anything in. As if reading her mind, Dais replied, "We'll get it later. Hey, Anubis, are you coming?"  
  
The occupant of the shotgun seat said nothing, being fast asleep, head resting on his taut seatbelt. Long auburn hair spilled down his bare shoulders - he was wearing a tank top, although the dress code at the university forbade teachers to wear casual clothes. Still, no one was going to argue with him, and most females on campus agreed he looked damn good in a black tank top. "Aw, look at him," Mia said with her head on one side, watching him. A faint smile crossed her face. "He's so cute when he's asleep."  
  
One narrow blue-green eye cracked open. "I am?" Anubis smirked.  
  
She snorted and dragged herself to the door.  
  
It opened by itself. "Welcome," said the man in the baseball cap.  
  
"Hi, Ancient, does Ryo know you're wearing his shirt?" Mia brushed past him, into the kitchen.  
  
She opened the refrigerator and climbed inside, aware that she was insane, and not caring in the least.  
  
The Ancient watched her placidly, then turned to greet Dais. "Welcome."  
  
The white-haired Warlord stared at him oddly. "Do you know what it says on your shirt?"  
  
"No. In the fundamental heart and mind of the Universe, it doesn't matter at all."  
  
"It says 'milkball' on your shirt," Dais said resentfully. "I can read English. I know this."  
  
The Ancient gave him a flat look, which was unseen because of the baseball cap. "Nobody cares," he spat, forgetting to be incomprehensible. He yanked Dais into the house and waited for Anubis. "Welcome!"  
  
The red-haired Warlord looked at him sleepily, tucking one of his sidelocks behind his ear. It fell right back into place as it always did. "Um. milkball---?"  
  
Peeved, the Ancient hit him upside the head and stormed off.  
  
"I feel unloved today," Anubis stated forlornly. He went into the kitchen to get a cold drink. In retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised to see Mia in the refrigerator. But you know what they say, hindsight's always 20/20. He was very surprised to see Mia in the refrigerator. She handed him the carton of orange juice, and closed the door again.  
  
Hee. Sorry it was short, but it's just the first chapter. Yrs in the Netherworld, Caspian Nyghtvision caspian_scholar@hotmail.com 


	2. Of Toothpick Shrines and Census Women

The Lost Art of Wandering from Room to Room By Caspian AKA Nyghtvision  
  
Disclaimer: Hasn't changed. And although I hear there is such a thing as juu-juu, I refuse to believe it.  
  
Author's Note: Okay, in case you were wondering about the T-shirts, in Japan shirts with English on them are kind of cool, even if they make absolutely no sense to the English. "MilkBall" and the like. If you think about it, it isn't that strange, Americans also think Japanese printing on T-shirts looks cool. I mean, we don't even know what our own t-shirts are saying. It could be something like "the person wearing this T-shirt wantonly molests wild pigs, ha, ha, ha," for all we know. Anyway.  
  
Chapter Two: Of Toothpick Shrines and Census Women  
  
It was Saturday. Cale was annoyed.  
  
It wasn't just that everyone was enjoying the weekend break, so there were thirteen people constantly entering and leaving the house; it wasn't just that Yulie was back from summer camp, with a lovely allergic reaction to poison ivy.  
  
It wasn't just that Sekhmet had barricaded himself in the room he shared with Kento and Cye and was flatly refusing to come out until Rowen gave him a sincere apology, or that the Ancient had found religion - again - and was absorbed in his task of building a shrine out of toothpicks in the living room to an obscure Chinese deity he had just discovered. It wasn't just the fact that Badamon had fled to his usual spot, perched in the dining room chandelier, chanting tunelessly and rattling a stick against the ceiling, or that White Blaze was sharpening his claws on the banister.  
  
It wasn't just that most of the Ronins were trying to study for an exam on Monday, and every so often a haggard-looking teenage man would stick his head out of the den and scream incoherently at the household in general to keep the noise level down.  
  
It wasn't just that Kayura had been fired from her job as a waitress, and was alternately cooped up sobbing in the room she shared with Mia, or storming around the house throwing things at people's heads. It wasn't just that it was 'that time of the month again,' and the two resident females were in a touchy mood to begin with. It wasn't just that Dais was quietly grading papers in the room he and Anubis shared, refusing to let the general atmosphere bother him in the least, which was incredibly annoying in its own way. It wasn't just that Anubis and Mia were 'researching' in the attic, which could be taken any way your dirty mind felt like exploring.  
  
It wasn't just that Cale worked nights, and was trying to get some sleep now while he could.  
  
Although this was all excruciatingly annoying and would have made a lesser man curl up and go mad, it wasn't just these things that were annoying Cale the most. What was annoying him most greatly, this gods-forsaken spam- benighted Saturday, was the fact that the doorbell was ringing, and since everybody else had gone mad, it was apparently up to him to answer it.  
  
Cale stormed across to the front door and slammed it open, glowering down at the person at the step, as if at any moment he might snap and leap at her throat. The neat little woman in her neat little business suit squeaked and stumbled back, clutching her clipboard protectively. "Um, I'm from the census bureau? I have an appointment with a Mia Koji?"  
  
The Warlord stood staring at her darkly for a good thirty seconds, during which the little woman edged back almost onto the driveway. "I'm sorry," he said finally, "Nobody can see you right now, they've all gone mad." He moved to shut the door.  
  
The neat little woman pounced and edged herself in the door with a skill borne of long practice. Next thing Cale knew, they were seated in the living room at the coffee table, she had spread out several forms and papers on it, and the Ancient was loudly lamenting the loss of his toothpick shrine, which had fallen over meekly as soon as Cale glared at it.  
  
"Now, how many people in this household are, as you say, 'mad,' and how many of them earn incomes of over two hundred million yen a year? Is there any direct proportion of 'mad' people in relation to actual breadwinners in the household, is madness any relation to their ethnicity, and do they prefer to be called 'sanity-impaired?'" The little woman dumped several pastel-colored forms in Cale's lap and handed him a cheap pen.  
  
"They're all lunatics," Cale stated, refusing to drop his grumpiness. He'd been woken up for this nonsense? He said several somethings under his breath and chewed savagely on her ballpoint while looking through the pastel papers.  
  
All throughout this, the Ancient had been kneeling on the floor, bemoaning the loss of his toothpick shrine in some long-forgotten old Japanese dialect, and the woman had been casting him odd, polite little glances. Cale had simply been ignoring the older man. Now he looked to see what was wrong.  
  
All right, the Ancient was an odd figure under any circumstances. Today he was wearing his long white hair straight and loose under the baseball cap, and he was wearing his old blue monk's over-robe over carpenter's jeans and another borrowed T-shirt with English printing. To anyone who could read English, it said, unhelpfully, "Screeching Weasel." He was currently scuttling around on the carpet, picking up toothpicks and morbidly muttering things like "He'll get you for this, see if he doesn't," and "The poor god doesn't get no respect."  
  
"Does this. person live with you?"  
  
"Yeah, he does."  
  
The woman produced her own pen and began writing this down. "What's your name, sir?" she asked the Ancient. (She hadn't asked before, since the long hair had led her to doubt his gender, and she didn't want to accidentally call a 'sir' a 'ma'am.')  
  
The Ancient gave her a world-weary look from under the baseball cap. "My name," he said bitterly, "Is the Ancient. Age discrimination. I shall sue. Remind me that I shall sue." Apparently he was in one of his more lucid moments. He picked up the toothpicks and the craft glue, and wandered off to the other corner of the room, where he could build his shrine in peace. The woman looked away politely. She had been warned about this in training; once in a while a household would produce a senile but harmless old nut, and it was best not to ask them any complicated questions.  
  
Cale frowned deeply at the sheaf of census forms. Phrases jumped out at him, like the averages of the household's income. Gods help him, he didn't know. "I think you want Mia for this. Or Dais, he does most of the accounts."  
  
The woman nodded, smiling sweetly. She wore horn-rimmed glasses. She was just the type to wear them, too. "The heads of the household?"  
  
"Yeah. No. Not really. Dais isn't anybody. Mia owns the house." Cale stood up, dumped the woman's papers back on her lap, left her sitting there with the Ancient muttering in the corner, had a celery stick thrown at him from the dining room ceiling as he passed through (Badamon was spinning around on the chandelier, yowling and gnawing his hidden stash of treats) got yelled at for no reason by two Ronins and Kayura as he went up one flight of stairs, jumped over the crazed carpet-shredding tiger on the landing, made it up to the attic without any trouble, shouted "Mia, it's for you," and retreated to the room he shared with Sage and Rowen to sleep the whole thing off.  
  
Mia came down from the attic a few minutes later, covered with dust and looking happy. Anubis followed her, equally dusty, with a pleased look on his face. He swung into his and Dais's room as Mia trotted downstairs to meet the visitor.  
  
The white-haired Warlord was busily grading Philosophy papers. It always amused Anubis how Dais had ended up teaching Philosophy at Tokyo University. Well, it seemed to fit. He fell backwards onto his bed with a happy sigh.  
  
Dais looked up slowly. His face was the usual serene mask, but a suspicious look glinted in his one good eye. "What have you and Mia been doing?"  
  
"Researching," Anubis replied cheerfully. "In the attic."  
  
"Sure." Dais gave him a scrutinizing look, twitched his eyebrows, and went back to work.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"I don't know, I just said 'sure.' You can take it any way you like."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Honestly, Anubis, you're starting to sound like Hardrock."  
  
"Kento," the redhead corrected automatically. He sat up straighter and started brushing the dust off. "No, really, what are you insinuating?"  
  
Dais turned in his chair again, gave him another long slow look, shook his head, and went back to work. "Nothing. It's your business."  
  
"What in the nine blithering bug-riddled hells are you talking about?" Anubis screamed. "Mia remembered that her grandfather had an old helmet from the Tokugawa shogunate, and we went to find it, and we got distracted."  
  
Dais choked.  
  
"...By an old photo album. You should have seen her in elementary school. Dais, what's with you?"  
  
"Nothing," Dais said forcefully, "Is wrong with me. It's everyone else I worry about."  
  
In the den, patience was wearing to the exploding point.  
  
"I can't believe this!" Ryo shouted. "They're giving the same freaking answer to five completely different questions!" He shoved the book under Cye's nose. "Look!"  
  
"I see," Cye told him calmly, squinting at the microscopic print hovering millimeters away from his nostrils.  
  
"How can that be possible?" Ryo screamed. After several hours of studying, studying, studying and coffee, he'd reached the breaking point.  
  
"Ryo, how should I know, that's advanced trigonometry and I've got Western art. Ask Rowen, he likes that stuff." Since the aggressive textbook was still just above his upper lip and showing no signs of moving, Cye backed away before the enraged Wildfire gave him a paper cut.  
  
"Rowen?" Sage rubbed his eyes blearily with the back of his hand. He was the only Ronin whose hairstyle had changed since high school; he still had long bangs, but they weren't as superhumanly dense and sweeping as they had been. "Rowen? Are you with us?"  
  
The student in question looked up from one of Mia's laptops with the glazed look of someone studying for a computer science quiz. "00100001 11110101 010000." he said blankly. Kento, waist deep in a pile of paper, gave him a friendly slap on the back. With an odd beeping sound, Rowen fell over face first and lay there.  
  
"Damn!" Ryo cursed, throwing the trigonometry book across the den, where it killed a small potted plant in the windowsill. He glared at Rowen's prone form. "Now I'm never going to know why all of the answers are 'forty-two!'"  
  
Sage, curious despite himself, picked up the book, looked at the page, and promptly doubled over, twitching, writhing and choking in some kind of strange seizure. It took everyone else a few seconds to see that he was laughing hysterically to the point of near death. Cye immediately leaped to his aid, scattering notes and papers across the room like a swan shedding feathers, and began shaking Sage's shoulders. "Think sad thoughts, Sage! Little children starving! Popsicles melting! Deer getting eaten by wolves!"  
  
Sage spasmed and went limp. Cye looked up. "He fainted."  
  
Rowen chose that moment to recover from his computer-induced trance. He bolted upright, wild-eyed, a page of computer notes stuck to his forehead. "RAMPANT COMPUTER VIRUSES, EVERYWHERE!" He sprinted around the room, shouting technical gibberish to himself and ripping the pictures off the walls.  
  
Ryo had a strangely fixed smile on his face as he stuck his nose into the binding of his trig book and began chanting formulas to drown out Rowen's crazed squeals. Kento roared as the tallest Ronin leapt gracefully over his head and landed in a heap on his pile of notebooks.  
  
A short, quiet figure in the sea of whirling insanity and algebra notes, Cye sighed, letting his head fall into his hands. His fingers clenched at his shaggy auburn bangs as if pulling out all his hair would result in a good grade in biology. "I need a break."  
  
Badamon cooed as he climbed down from the chandelier, clutching his last doggie treat to his chest. Voices came from the living room; Incoherent-but- Harmless-Old-Guy's subdued ranting a soothing background noise, Alpha Female's patient voice, and a female newcomer's high-pitched, polite voice. A golden opportunity to create mayhem. A demented giggle escaped the Netherspirit, and he scampered into the living room and latched onto the newcomer's ankle.  
  
"Mango! Mango! Mango! Mango!"  
  
The woman screeched and lifted out of her chair. Cackling, Badamon threw a handful of confetti at her. She screamed even louder, and gaped in shock. "Wh-what is it?"  
  
"Oh, that's our Chihuahua, Badamon," Mia chirped brightly, her smile as bright as the sun. She latched onto the struggling demon's flea collar, and tried to drag him off. "I'm so very sorry," she gushed. "He gets like this around people he doesn't know. He's usually very well trained. It must be your perfume or something. Come on, Badamon," Mia cooed in baby talk as she yanked him away. "Let's leave the nice lady alone."  
  
However, Mia had given the Netherspirit ideas, and now he started bouncing up and down, grinning like a maniac and barking hyperactively. "Somebody take the pets out for a walk!" Mia bellowed, giving Badamon the bum's rush out the living room. Before he could dash back in, she barricaded the doorway with a baby gate that just happened to be nearby.  
  
The census woman was giving her a strange look. "That was a dog?"  
  
"A Chihuahua," Mia repeated, smiling like a model for a toothpaste commercial. The woman was still giving her that blank, disbelieving look, so she elaborated shamelessly. "An African Blue Chihuahua. They're very rare these days."  
  
"It looked like it was wearing a hat." The census woman looked around, the very picture of a person who thinks they're going insane, but aren't quite sure yet.  
  
The Ancient looked up from his toothpicks. In a sudden burst of coherence, he announced, "Their ears get cold."  
  
"Oh." The woman sat back down, rearranged her skirts, and smiled weakly. "I suppose I should write this down on the Pets form. How many animals did you say you have?"  
  
A whole houseful, Mia thought dryly. "Two. Badamon and a. er. um. cat."  
  
"Very good. Most households have two point five pets. How many people did you say were living here?"  
  
Let's see. Armor bearers are nine, Kayura and Ancient makes eleven, then Yulie and I."Thirteen."  
  
"Are there any children living with you under the age of eighteen?"  
  
Mia had to think about that for a moment. Did Kayura count? They all realized she had the mind (and body) of a young woman, but technically she was also a kid. Also, technically, she was a few centuries old. "Yuli," she said finally. "He's thirteen."  
  
"Ah. And how many people here have full-time jobs?"  
  
"Uh." Mia snuck a glance at the Ancient, who had gotten bored with the toothpicks and was kneeling respectfully to a large potted plant. Did being Guardian of the Mortal Realm count as a full-time job? Probably not, she decided, as he spent most of his time doing. other things.  
  
Sekhmet was quietly reading in 'his' room, which was, as always, swamped with Kento's stuff. Cye theoretically lived in it, too, but Kento's mess covered over three-quarters of the area, and Cye lacked the territorial instinct to claim much more than a bed. Sekhmet had a far more assertive nature, and had a bed, a nightstand and three feet of space to himself. The rest was covered with Kento's mess and was thus, by some unwritten law, Kento's.  
  
So, to be more accurate, Sekhmet was quietly reading on his bed in a room that was mostly Kento's.  
  
Cye came in, looking haunted, and trudged through mountains of stuff to his bed. "I don't care what Mia says about not having any more room, I don't care if he's my bloody best friend, we've got to get him out of here." He flopped down on the mattress. "Rowen still hasn't apologized?"  
  
"No. I think he forgot." Sekhmet folded down his page and turned to look at the bearer of Torrent. "Why aren't you studying with the other Ronins?"  
  
Cye looked at him.  
  
"Ah."  
  
"Ryo's turned into an evil trigonometry person, Sage tried to help him with a problem he was having and laughed himself into a coma, Rowen has a computer science exam tomorrow so he's completely snapped, and Kento is beating Rowen for tearing up his physics notes in an attempt to root out an email virus he's convinced is lurking in the theory of Relativity."  
  
"Yes! Ryo turned evil first? I knew it. Cale owes me five hundred yen for this!" Sekhmet congratulated himself. "See, he thought you would be the first to go 'cause it's always the quiet ones that snap. But that's just stupid. I knew it! Ha!" The Warlord bolted from the room to collect his bet.  
White Blaze chose that moment to tear through the house in a sudden kitty spaz fit. For those who don't live with cats, this means their eyes get all wide and wild, their fur puffs up, and they gallop through the house, bouncing off the walls, skittering around corners, like water buffalos on drugs, until they encounter something to attack, like the edge of a carpet or a shoe. White Blaze was throwing a royal kitty spaz fit, and he ended it dramatically by sailing over the baby gate and attacking the couch. Spotting his audience, the tiger realized that he had to improvise something; he composed a demonstration on how to gut an antelope, using the couch as the unlucky antelope. Mia sank her head into her hands.  
  
"Ancient?"  
  
"Hmn?" He looked up from his corner.  
  
"Get White Blaze out of here before this woman dies of a heart attack."  
  
"Okay." The Ancient offered the tiger a toothpick. The tiger promptly ate it. They wandered off together.  
  
The census woman was frozen in place, gibbering slightly. And she hasn't even met the rest of them, Mia thought. "Would you like to come back later?"  
  
"Yes!" the woman shouted, leaping forward and gathering her papers. "I'll - yes - I'll come back later. Thank you. Bye." She shot out the door.  
  
Mia sighed, watching from the doorway as the woman's car roared out of the driveway like a bat from hell. "Poor woman, she's too high-strung for this job."  
  
Caspian: (singing 'Unwell' by Matchbox 20) I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, I know right now you can't tell. Hi there! Was it brilliant? Was it confusing? Did it move you, excite you, thrill and delight you? Should I go take a running jump? Caspian Nyghtvision can always be reached at caspian_scholar@hotmail.com 


	3. What Really Happens when you Destroy a T...

The Lost Art of Wandering From Room to Room By Caspian Nyghtvision  
  
Disclaimer: Hasn't changed. The doctors tell me that juu-juu is a kind of bean. It can't be!  
  
Author notes: Short and bizarre. This one's a bit over the line drawn in the sand to separate the sane from the People who Hear Rice Krispies. Please forgive the absurdness. It's not how I usually write.  
  
Chapter Three: What REALLY Happens When You Destroy a Toothpick Shrine  
  
"The viruses. they're everywhere. Norton is powerless against them."  
  
"Poor Rowen, he's lost it," Cye said sadly.  
  
Kayura looked up from her cornflakes and snorted. Her eyes were red from yesterday's crying. "Cye, he never had it." She returned to poking sadly at her soggy cereal.  
  
"G'marnin" Cale came into the kitchen wearing only boxers, gave the coffeemaker a distrustful look, and collapsed onto a chair. He fell asleep again before his head hit the table.  
  
"Rowen kept us up all night," Sage said hauntedly, clutching his coffee like a lifeline. "Thrashing around reciting bits of computer code."  
  
Everyone was sitting in their usual places in the kitchen, attempting to wake up. Rowen wandered around, eyes glazed, making beep-beep noises and muttering. Several people had snagged places around the table, but the rest sat on countertops or on White Blaze. Most of the Ronins looked haggard, but Ryo looked cheerfully normal. The Ancient perched above the refrigerator and sulked. Yulie crouched shivering over the sink, his head under the running faucet. Badamon contently gnawed a bone under the table.  
  
"You still got that fever, Yulie?" Mia asked as she patted Kayura's back sympathetically.  
  
"Mnn-hmn," the teenager at the sink choked.  
  
"I still don't see why he's so sick, it's only poison ivy."  
  
"Says the one man in the room immune to all venom."  
  
Sekhmet glared at Ryo. His heavy eyelids were lowered because Rowen's crazed ranting in the next room had kept him up all night, and it made the green-haired Warlord look quite sinister. "Shut up."  
  
Sniffling slightly, Kayura kicked Badamon under the table. "Stop drooling on my toes, Baddie, you disgusting midget. Whose turn is it to take them for a walk?"  
  
"The Ancient's," everyone said.  
  
The man turned his back and sulked. "The god's shrine lies in ruins, and the toothpicks are scattered across the living room carpet. Chu-I-To-Ma-To will wreak his vengeance on all here."  
  
"The toothpicks? Ancient, I told you to clean those up," Mia scolded.  
  
Kento emerged from his coffee, "You were building a shrine to a Chewy Tomato?"  
  
"Do not mock the god! There will be vengeance-wreaking!"  
  
"How do you wreak vengeance? With a garden hose?"  
  
"Anubis, you were my disciple, I would expect better from you."  
  
"But. but. but." Cye looked left out. "Who is Chu-I-To-Ma-To?"  
  
"THE VIRUSES RAGE WORLDWIDE!" With a dramatic flourish, Rowen ripped out the silverware drawer and turned it upside down. Spoons scattered everywhere.  
  
The Ancient seized this moment to leap down from the fridge and start speechifying. "Viruses and spoons!" he proclaimed, grabbing Rowen's wrist and holding it in the air. "Behold the Prophet! First signs of the Coming!"  
  
"00011110 01010001?" Rowen wondered.  
  
Badamon squealed and dove into the cupboard. Everyone ignored him.  
  
"Right." Dais took his cornflakes and went into the living room.  
  
"Ancient. Ancient. Put the fork down." Mia turned on her Patient Mode, which she used when she had to explain to her Japanese Mythology students that juu-juu isn't a real word. "It's okay. Who is Chu-I-To-Ma-To? What is he the god of?"  
  
"Dryer lint and houseguests. And he will RETURN to WREAK--"  
  
Mia snagged the fork before he put his own eyes out. "I'm sure he will. Why don't we--"  
  
"I HAVE returned! I will WREAK my vengeance, infidels!" squeaked a little voice from the floor. Mia turned and looked at the fuzzy, rabbit-shaped ball of lint, fur and hair in the middle of the floor.  
  
"Oh, look, one of White Blaze's hairballs came to life." Ryo was instantly punished for his blasphemous words as dryer lint fell out of nowhere into his hair. Wildfire sighed and took his coffee into the living room, picking the fluffy stuff out of his thick black locks.  
  
"Chu-I-To-Ma-To hath come!" The Ancient knelt to the lintball.  
  
"I came to you in a dream and told you to build me a shrine! You failed! From now on, you will have unusual amounts of fluffy stuff in your clothes dryer, and an unwanted visitor will land on your doorstep!" Chu-I-To-Ma-To piped.  
  
Ryo struggled back into the kitchen, dragging the Ancient Vacuum Cleaner of Doom. Dramatic music thundered in the background as he yanked out yards of ancient electric cord, plugged it in and turned it on.  
  
The huge, clumsy, dangerous-looking old machine roared to life like an enraged dragon. Everything under ten pounds was sucked into its hungry maw. The god of houseguests and dryer lint didn't stand a chance in the face of the Ancient Vacuum of Doom.  
  
Everyone just looked at the extremely clean spot on the floor and shrugged. Ryo turned off the vacuum cleaner and dragged it away like David hauling off Goliath's carcass.  
  
"What a way to start the day," Rowen said clearly. Mia gasped and hugged him. "You're better! You're not talking in computer code any more!"  
  
Anubis staggered to the coffeemaker, "This is going to be a long day."  
  
Yeah. Short and bizarre. I did say so.  
  
Caspian Nyghtvision can be reached at caspian_scholar@hotmail.com, unless you want money. Then you're out of luck, cause she sure as hell doesn't have any. 


End file.
